these days

While continuing my project of uploading the archives of the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism into their Facebook page and website, I happened upon these awesome headlines from the Log Cabin Democrat and the Arkansas Gazette: Apollo 11’s mission, Neil Armstrong’s moon landing and President Kennedy’s assassination.

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I recently read this, so I now sing the praises of Joe Meno.

credit: casualoptimist.com

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Listening to a little more electronic music these days, so I wandered over to Baby Armie‘s Cool Shoes event to see Psymbionic, a dubstep DJ and music producer from Austin.

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Classes are back in session, which means I get to start the amazing and incredible thesis.

 I have a feeling I’m going to need lots of coffee & Nightbird time for this.

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My time as an associate editor has begun at About You Magazine.

 I am loving it so far, getting to write about Leon Niehues, the basketweaver, NWA Fashion Week and some really cool places opening in the area.

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What do you have going on these days?

Office Girl

credit: casualoptimist.com

One of the New York writers that I follow came up with a list of books every twenty-something must read. Months later, I don’t remember which author it was or why it stuck with me, but I finally read Joe Meno’s  Office Girl.  It’s almost embarrassing how much I can relate to it, but also a relief. Here’s other 24, 25-year-olds who kind of have an idea of what they would like to do with their lives, but are feeling a bit detached from their dreams while whittling away hours of busy work in fluorescent-lit cubicles.

At this point in my life, I absolutely see why this is a necessary part of my life, how it can help me get where I’m going and that keeps me from feeling totally lost or full of despair, but there are days. Days when it still seems like a little too much to handle and the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ is growing dimmer and dimmer. Sometimes all I need is to know I’m not the only one, something that helps keep my energy up to pursue goals for my life and career. The next few passages were some of those best comforts that Meno had to offer.

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“Do they have green gloves in Germany, Elise? Probably. Probably.  They’re probably way more functional. They’re probably all going to grad school and studying economics. And they’re all going to be way happier. Happier than they ever thought.”

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And then they ride back down Milwaukee Avenue in near silence. At the corner of Augusta Avenue, they part ways quietly, neither putting a word to the distracted notions, the complicated thoughts, the sense that the brilliant, refracted lights of the city are all the feelings they are now feeling.

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…they are eight stories up and now there is the city, and it is submerged in snow, though it’s still so big, rising before him everywhere, because the windows in the building, the sashes themselves, have already been taken out, and the wind is pretty strong and Odile is standing near one of the open spots, pointing, and he looks down and he sees how far the drop is and feels his knees go limp and she is lauging, standing beside him, and it’s not the city as he always imagines it, it’s something altogether different because of the sound of the girl’s laughter and the fact that it’s so big, so vast and unconquerable, and now it’s buried in snow, a ghost city, a blank city, the idea of a city, a city of every conceivable possibility, and then she is saying something he can’t hear because of the wind, and he says “What?”….”Are you scared?” she asks, laughing. “No. A little.” And then, “I guess.”

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And then that is it. The last four days, some of the best days he’s ever had, are now over. And then. Then nothing. Then a kind of informal, intractable despair. Calculator watches are broken later that evening when certain people punch the restroom walls out of frustration. Young persons who had been together act like sitting in cubicles beside each other means nothing. And then it does. Means nothing. And there are  ringing telephones. And it’s like nothing interesting has ever happened to anybody.

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…realizes how there are all these moments, moments like just this one, there are all these moments, and how everyone lives their lives in these short, all-too-short moments. There are all these moments and what’s so interesting, what makes them beautiful, is the fact that none of them last.

these days

These days I’ve been…

Enjoying local entertainment by

Groovement

Phunbags comedy troupe and

the Artist’s Laboratory Theatre

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Watching this over and over.

http://www.superbwallpapers.com/

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend it. It was made by Rian Johnson, the genius behind Brick.

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Reading this.

credit: subterranean books

Just another in the line of books I’ve read by men named Dave.

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Wearing this.

Prada!

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Spending time with my favorite two-year-old associate, who has spectacular taste in shoes.

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What are you up to these days?

A Heartbreaking Work

credit: lampshadebirdy

I recently read Dave Eggers’ acclaimed A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, after many recommendations from friends and references in other things that I’ve read. I loved it for its celebration of youth in all its beauty and imperfection and for its cut-to-the-chase on important things, including the realities of friendship and the qualities of a good family (not the typically given reasons, of course). Here are a few brief passages that I enjoyed the most.

“I worry that any minute someone—the police, a child welfare agency, a health inspector, someone—will burst in and arrest me, or maybe just shove me around, make fun of me, call me bad names, and then take Toph away, will bring him somewhere where the house is kept clean, where laundry is done properly and frequently, where the parental figure or figures can cook and do so regularly, where there is no running around the house poking each other with sticks from the backyard.”

“We are unusual and tragic and alive. We are disadvantaged but young and virile. We walk the halls and the playground, and we are taller, we radiate. We are orphans. As orphans, we are celebrities. We are foreign exchange people, from a place where there are still orphans. Russia? Romania? Somewhere raw and exotic. We are the bright new stars born of a screaming black hole, the nascent suns burst from the darkness, from the grasping void of space that folds and swallows–a darkness that would devour anyone not as strong as we.”

“Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves. And it’s fleeting and incredibly mercurial. And subjective. So screw it.”

“The drives in central Illinois, those miles, so straight, where you could drive 80, 90, the windows down, corn gone, just raw gray fields, where you felt like you were plowing through time itself, like you were a huge loud missile tearing the earth in half, leaving grateful ruin in your wake—but also knowing, we knew, we always knew, that really, at least seen from anyone else’s perspective, it was not that way….we were nothing like that—not loud, not powerful, not affecting much at all, not leaving any ruin, not making any noise.”

“I am livid that he’s going to make me give him the speech. I do it, piecing it together from times I’ve seen it done on TV and in movies. I tell him that there are many people who love him and would be crushed if he were to kill himself, while wondering, distantly, if that is the truth. I tell him that he has so much potential, that he has so many things to do, while most of me believes that he will never put his body and brain to much use at all. I tell him that we all have dark periods, while becoming ever more angry at him, the theatrics, the self-pity, all this, when he has everything.”

“And we will be ready, at the end of every day will be ready, will not say no to anything, will try to stay awake while everyone is sleeping, will not sleep, will make the shoes with the elves, will breathe deeply all the time, breathe in all the air full of glass and nails and blood, will breathe it and drink it, so rich, so when it comes we will not be angry, will be content, tired enough to go, gratefully, will shake hands with everyone, bye, bye, and then pack a bag, some snacks, and go to the volcano—-“

Farewell 2012

This is what the sky looked like in 2012.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nature

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what cute looked like.

This is what family looked like

 

 

And this

 

In 2012, I worked with this silly guy.

 

 

 

 

And this lovely lady.

I traveled…

To California

 

 

 

 

 

To Texas

To Wisconsin

I meandered through art museums…

In San Diego

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Dallas

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Bentonville

Once I eased back into a training schedule and accumulated some helpful gear, I ran more than 300 miles, including a few that were spent…

at the Little Rock Half Marathon

 

 

 

 

 

 

the Cow Paddy Run in Fayetteville

 

 

and the Women Can Run in Conway on a rainy race day with these sweet ladies

 

This is what my friends look like when I tell them the stories in my head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 2012, I dreamed of someday owning a cottage like this one.

“What’s this about? You figured love would shine through.

We’ve lost romance this world has turned…

Open your mind, believe it’s going to come to.

The sun’s in the sky, it makes for happy endings

You can’t deny you want the happy ending.”